


Laws of Motion

by Winterstar



Series: This is battle; this is war. [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 04:26:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A love story continued.</p><p>This is a timestamp for the series this is battle; this is war.</p><p>Steve returns slightly injured from a mission, Tony takes care of him.</p><p>
  <i>You do not have to read the other stories to read this one.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laws of Motion

**Author's Note:**

> A short timestamp for the series while I work on the larger sequel. 
> 
> The main stories will always be in Tony's POV. All timestamps (and I have more planned) will be in Steve's POV. Hope that is something people would be interested in.

On these days, he takes care not to disturb Tony. The long hours of the flight, the hellish mission aside, Steve knows that even with his own exhaustion eating at his bones, he must be mindful of his love. When he opens the door to their shared bedroom, he does so with the utmost attention to knowing Tony has probably worked himself to more than collapse. He slips into the room, quietly considering the figure lying asleep on the bed, before he limps slowly to the en suite bathroom and disrobes. 

The mission had failed and, while it hadn’t been their fault, both he and Natasha paid for the faulty intel reports. Natasha grumbled at him because he’d stepped in front of her to take the brunt of the explosion. She really couldn’t complain; he had the shield and she did not. Most of the projectiles had pinged off of his shield without notice, while a few others pierced through his legs and one hit him along the temple leaving a long gash. 

He’d been checked over and cleaned up as much as they could at medical before he ventured back to the Tower. Turning on the hot water faucet in the walk-in shower, he runs it until the steam fills the room. There was a time so long ago that hot water and steam was something he wanted and longed for – for the relief of it but in different ways. The steam would always help clear out his sinuses but he had to be careful back in the day not to trigger an asthma attack. 

Now, he is just relieved to step into the water and rinse away the scum of the mission. There have been times when he comes home that Tony is waiting like a sentinel for him. Of course, he makes the excuse that he’s been awake the entire time that Steve has been gone because of a new revelation and discovery. He always has evidence of something fantastical he wants to show Steve. Before Steve climbs into the shower or even kisses Tony, he allows the little display of marvels, because Tony needs Steve to believe he wouldn’t just stand and wait for him, he wouldn’t just worry.

In some ways, Steve is grateful that the mission took more than seven days. Eight and a half if he’s exact. The human body can only withstand so much abuse and negligence. This way, Tony ended up succumbing to the need to sleep (and hopefully at some point eat). While he would have loved to be able to come home to Tony’s embrace, have him massage away the hurts and the pains from the operation gone south, Steve recognizes that finding Tony asleep in their bed is all the reward in the world he needs. He can take care of himself; he’s a super soldier after all.

He peels away the gauze on his legs and hisses a little. He might be enhanced but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to get injured. His shins look like someone had a good time with a staple gun or something. There are miniature puncture wounds up and down and into the thick muscles of both legs. Just the strain of standing reminds him that they are there. He steps into the shower and suppresses the wince as the hot water hits his face. The glancing blow to his temple left a ridge that will be gone in the morning. Tony will barely know that he’d almost been skewered in the head. He’ll write it off when Tony’s asks and everything should be fine. 

Tony doesn’t need to worry about Steve. Steve is the super soldier. Tony is not. Tony is a human, a normal everyday human with a magnificent brain and a capacity to love that Steve thought only existed in fairy tales and those romance novels the girls in the roadshow used to read and giggle over. If Steve could stop Tony from being in harm’s way, he’d do it today, but he knows deep in his bones that Tony would no sooner leave being Iron Man behind than Steve could walk away from defending what he thinks is the right course. 

He rinses away the dried and caked blood from his hair. Medical could only do so much. He finishes up and turns off the water. He shivers and allows himself a moment. After the heat, he sometimes feels inordinately cold. He’s never confessed this to anyone but Tony. How on summer days when he walks inside a building and feels the first blast of air conditioning causes him to fall back into the black days of the ice. How he remembers snatches of his time in the ice, how knowing Tony is standing beside him – so close he could touch him – grounds him, helps keep him in the present and doesn’t jar him to the past and the frigid dark days of the icy pain. 

He towels off and slips back into the main bedroom. He opens his bureau drawer and pulls out a pair of Iron Man boxers. Clint thought it was so funny when he gave them to Steve, he couldn’t stop laughing for days and missed several shots at the shooting range when Steve pulled down the waistband of his trousers – just ever so slightly so Clint could catch a glimpse of them. They are Steve’s favorites.

He tugs them on, being careful of the peppered wounds on his legs and then limps over to the bed. He only wants to lie down next to Tony and feel his heat, lie in the wake of the arc reactor’s light and let the glow lead him off to sleep like some ethereal light from another land. He snuggles down into the curve of the bed and Tony shifts.

Turning over, Tony looks up at him and Steve knows – knows he’s been fully awake this entire time. He reaches out and caresses the groove on Steve’s face. “You didn’t call.”

“I did, I left a message.”

“You told JARVIS not to disturb me,” Tony says, his voice is light but Steve can read the menace in it, laced underneath.

“Nothing to worry about, not enough to disturb you about.”

“You got shot in the head, Steve,” Tony says and leans up on one arm. He perches over Steve and stares down at him; the reactor’s light highlighting Steve’s features, his wound. 

“Barely hit me, and it wasn’t a bullet.”

“A pointy projectile even if it isn’t from a gun is still a dangerous thing to have flung at your head at high velocities.”

Steve says, “It doesn’t matter, I’m fine.”

Tony glares at him and then says, “Let me see the rest.”

Steve waits a moment before he flips the blankets over and reveals his injured legs.

“Damn it, Steve, what the hell?”

“It barely hurts and it will be gone by tomorrow night, or at least most of them will be.” He adds the last part in when Tony gives him a dubious look.

“And that means they were all the worse when you first were hit, doesn’t it?” Tony asks. “Could you even walk, were you even conscious with that hit to the head?” 

Steve remains quiet; Tony will read the report anyway. He’ll read how Natasha had to support most of Steve’s weight to drag him to the waiting Quinjet for evacuation. He’ll see the details of how the projectile slamming into his head caused him to blank out for a few precious seconds and only Widow’s quick thinking saved them both. There are photos of the blood smeared over his face and legs. Tony will access it all, even if it is secured. Tony will find a way.

“Shit, Steve,” Tony says and tucks the blankets over Steve’s legs again because he knows Steve will be cold, is cold. He understands how the heat and cold difference is somehow worse than just the cold alone. 

“Tony, I’m fine. Super soldier, here. I can take it,” Steve says and reaches up to caress the side of Tony’s face.

Tony catches his hand and stops him. “No, Steve, no. Do you even get it? Do you understand? Just because you are a super soldier does not make you expendable. You shouldn’t just not care that you’ve been hit, that it hurts.”

“But Tony-.”

“Don’t, don’t negate what I said, because it’s true. You throw yourself around like you are the shield, the barrier against everything with the team. No.”

Steve closes his eyes and then opens them. It hits him like a punch to the gut. He’s hurt Tony by ignoring his own fears brewing inside of him. He’s hurt the man he loves. He never intended that, he only wanted to protect him from the pain and the terror. Tony has known so much of that in his world. 

He cannot protect Tony if he’s willing to hurt him. It breaks then and when he tries to open his eyes to meet Tony’s gaze he cannot. The fear and horror well up on him like the rising of the tide, like the gale of the hurricane’s winds, like the force of the blow to his head. He shudders and Tony gathers him up in his arms and curls Steve to him.

“Babe,” Tony whispers in his ear and Steve is terrified. Fragmented and broken, so fearful he might lose Tony as well as everyone else in his world, like everyone else he lost. It ravages him and the pain expands until the throbbing of his head is in tune with the pulsing deep within his core.

Tony holds him through it, hushes him, and embraces him. He pets Steve’s hair and tangles his fingers in the short strands. He twists it and tugs it with a sharp yank, a small pull, just enough to ground in a certain kind of pleasure that has been only theirs for these months together. It brings Steve around to Tony, links him and holds him. He wants more and his body asks for it. Tony grabs his hair and his tug this time is not careful, and not restrained.

Steve groans into it and suddenly it crystalizes everything and every part of his life becomes this moment. He shudders in Tony’s embrace.

Tony kisses him lightly, softly against his injured temple. “You’ll be all right, I’m here.”

He keeps murmuring these words of solace and peace to Steve. He links to Steve, anchors him on this real place, the world around him. 

Tony takes his mouth, then, and Steve gives over to him, offers him everything. Tony would take it, too, but he silently gently brings them both to a quiet and softly beautiful climax. It isn’t hardship, or pain, or pleasure, it is love.

Steve settles as Tony collapses on top of him. The glow of the arc reactor slightly smothered and captured by their bodies. Within this world, this place between them, its light radiates like beacon of their future. Within its tender light, Steve knows he is safe, he is protected, and he is home.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for taking time out of your day to spend with me. Kudos to you!


End file.
